“Battle For Brooklyn” Deleted Scene: Bertha Lewis’s Non-Response To Low-Income Tenants Kicked Out Of Affordable Housing At The Atlantic Yards Site

Most of what had to be excised from a 90-minute film, if included, would have been extra damning of the cabal of mega-project supporters Bruce Ratner collected around him while waving cash for those willing to sell out the community for private benefit. One big piece of the story left out of the film is the role of ACORN.

A deleted scene from the movie involving ACORN has been uploaded to the web by Michael Galinsky, one of the film makers of “Battle For Brooklyn.” As a piece that wound up on the cutting room floor, it is a good clue to the superfluity of superb material the film makers amassed and had to make choices about.

The scene is a three-minute drama involving an exchange between ACORN’s Bertha Lewis and Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn’s Daniel Goldstein following a press conference in Brooklyn’s Borough Hall. In the clip Goldstein is trying to get Ms. Lewis to appreciate and understand that developer Forest City Ratner’s plan is resulting in the low-income tenants living in property being acquired for the project getting kicked out of their affordable housing, something that was directly contrary to what, minutes before, Ms. Lewis told a gaggle of reporters. She'd told them this wasn’t happening. Ms. Lewis is imperiously dismissive of Mr. Goldtein's concern, reflexively going out of her way to disclaim the obvious connection between what Goldstein is describing and Forest City Ratner.